Bayou Nights by Julie Mulhern

Author:Julie Mulhern [Mulhern, Julie]
Language: ara
Format: epub
Tags: historical romance, select historical, New Orleans, entangled publishing, treasure
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2016-07-24T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Somehow Christine had transported them from the hotel to a carriage to the dubious comforts of a pirogue in less than an hour. Now they floated beneath cypress hung with Spanish moss. Drake felt unseen eyes watching them from the lily-choked verdure, perhaps from behind the worn shutters of the tiny shack that seemed precariously balanced on stilts, perhaps from the canopy of green, perhaps from the water itself.

It made sense that a swamp would be hot—a wet heat that invaded the lungs and sent rivulets of sweat down Drake’s back. The smell was a surprise. Decay, rot, and the growth of countless plants assaulted his nose with each breath.

If Christine was uncomfortable with the heat or the smell or the whine of insects small and large, she didn’t show it. She sat in front of him in the small boat, her back somehow straighter than a straight line.

He wanted her in a way that defied logic. Not that logic had so much as tiptoed across his mind at the hotel. The melting expression in her eyes, the taste of her kisses, and the touch of her fingers on his naked skin had chased rational thought clear to the Mason-Dixon Line, leaving him and his visceral needs poised on the edge of a cliff, willing to risk obliteration on the jagged rocks below. The blasted bellboy with the blasted candy had saved him. Saved them both. Drake should be grateful for the arrival of the pralines.

He wasn’t.

His body, ready as it was to meld with hers, objected. So too did his heart. That muscle had managed the impossible; it had seen Christine clearly. Seen past the woman who flirted and flitted and drawled. Seen the brave woman she kept hidden away like a dirty secret. It had even seen her fear.

Promises had rushed to his lips. You can depend on me. I’ll never hurt you. I’ll treasure you forever.

Drake wiped a bead of sweat from his temple and scowled at her back. He had no room in his life for promises he couldn’t keep. Good thing he’d kept his lips firmly sealed.

“Veer left,” Christine told the man wielding the pole that propelled them through the water.

“Ain’t nothin’ good that way.”

It wasn’t as if going right would lead them to Nirvana. “Do as the lady says.”

The man, who smelled almost as rank as the swamp, mumbled something about funerals.

“Just do it.” Drake smacked at a mosquito.

Behind him, something splashed into the water. Drake turned but saw nothing except tree trunks, fallen leaves, looming branches, and venomous green. A bird called—squawked—and the sound echoed across the water, mixing with the songs of crickets and frogs. The world had turned primordial and he did not belong.

“Left again, Mr. Thibault.”

The man looked over his shoulder and scowled. “You know where you’re headed?”

Christine’s head bobbed. “I do.”

Thibault looked up at the canopy of green that hid the sky. “You ain’t got much time. I don’t aim to be out here with night comin’ on.”

“We’ll only be a minute or two.

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